This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-123965, filed on Apr. 25, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques of aiding a work of composing words of a song.
b) Description of the Related Art
As a conventional word composing apparatus, a word composition aiding apparatus is known which is disclosed in JP-A-10-97529. This apparatus divides music into a plurality of paragraphs, sets a word composing condition to each paragraph, derives words matching the word composing condition from a xe2x80x9cpoem piece data bankxe2x80x9d to present them to a user, and stores the word selected by the user to compose words. The apparatus also detects the number of syllables of a given melody so that words matching the number of syllables are derived from the xe2x80x9cpoem piece data bankxe2x80x9d.
With this conventional apparatus, a correspondence between each note of a given melody and a character of song words is not so easy to be understood. In deriving words matching the number of syllables of a melody, it is desired to consider a xe2x80x9cphonetic soundxe2x80x9d of each character to derive more general song words. For example, a word  is pronounced either as two notes of  and  or as a single note of . If words having the number of characters equal to the number of syllables are derived, only the words corresponding to the two tones in this example are derived and words corresponding to one tone cannot be derived.
It is very difficult for a songwriter novice to understand what part of speech is placed at which position to compose good song words. It is effective for aiding a songwriter in such a point.
It is an object of the present invention to provide techniques of providing an effective aid in composing song words matching a melody.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a word composing apparatus comprising: a melody display controller for visually displaying a given melody on a display connected to the word composing apparatus; an input cell display controller for displaying an input cell corresponding to each note of the melody on the display; and an input processor for executing a process of inputting letters or characters of a song word corresponding to a note to the input cell.
A continuous character display controller may be provided which displays a continuous character train in a continuous display area of the display, wherein characters input to the input cells are displayed in the continuous display area as a continuous song word character train.
A continuous character train includes a train of long song words displayed in rows and a train containing spaces intentionally inserted. The continuous character train has continuous characters in at least two adjacent input cells.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a word composing apparatus comprising: a dictionary storing at least words and parts of speech corresponding to the words; a search condition designator for designating at least a part of speech as a search condition; a word search unit for searching a word matching the search condition designated by the search condition designator from the dictionary; a search result display unit for displaying a searched word; and an input processor unit for executing a process of inputting a word displayed on the search result display unit as letters or characters of a song word.
According to various features of the invention, the following advantages can be obtained:
a relation between each note of a melody, a character of song words, and a syllable can be easily understood;
continuous words separated in respective input cells can be displayed as a continuous character train or syllable train;
words of a continuous character train or syllable train can be made easy to look;
input cells still not input with song word characters or syllables can be found easily;
a word can be selected by designating a part of speech;
a word can be selected by designating the number of syllables and a part of speech;
a plurality of characters or syllables can be made to have a correspondence to one note;
an order of parts of speech can be determined simply by selecting a sentence syntax template;
each section of melody can be made easy to have a correspondence to a part of speech; and
an effective aid in composing words matching a melody can be provided.